Learn secrets of Everett on a walk back in time

EVERETT — It’s easy to walk downtown streets and forget Everett is an old man of a city, with secrets, strange stories and even violence in its past.

President Teddy Roosevelt once spoke to a crowd of 15,000 on Colby Avenue. A newspaper editor shot and killed a political foe not far from a spot later known as the Free Speech Corner.

For a period in the 1920s, a 60-foot American Indian story pole stood smack in the middle of Wetmore Avenue and California Street. It eventually had to come down because city firefighters couldn’t get fire engines around it.

Historian David Dilgard captured these and other fascinating tidbits in a downtown Everett walking tour you can take anytime. The audio tour and the accompanying map are available for free at the Everett Public Library’s website at www.epls.org. Download the audio tour onto an MP3 player and take a walk back through time.

The tour takes a little more than an hour to complete. It starts at the library and follows a circular 2.5-mile route through downtown.

The tour includes more than 60 sites and covers subjects as varied as crime, politics, architecture and famous people.

Dilgard has led historical tours of downtown Everett for 30 years. However, he expects even the most knowledgeable locals to hear something surprising.

“I would be profoundly disappointed if anybody who took this tour didn’t find something they didn’t know,” Dilgard said.